Certainly not 15 years but maybe 5 years. We have seen IMO two developments, professional wardeccers and less open-minded, challenge-seeking new players.
We can’t get rid of wardecs in one or the other way because we allow corp assets in space, but CCP can ease the imbalance. Also I think the expectations regarding a fix has to be low because of the highsec selection bias towards PvP.
That is, if competent PvPers, FCs and corps would arise in highsec, they will leave highsec. Because if you are good at PvP, there is no reason to live in highsec. So what’s left are those not yet experienced in PvP and those not interested in PvP (exceptions excluded, as they are in minority).
A solution should address both groups. The “not yet” group needs to get breathing room to learn in their own pace, and the “not interested” needs to get the option to easily outsource the problem.
My proposal addresses both, groups without a structure can’t be aggressed but they can defend other structures on their own terms (learning). Groups with structures, can easily let others do the work without any formalism or extensive socializing (outsourcing).
Finally this can fail because the group of “not yet but willing” is too small in highsec, but let’s try. All the other proposals with winning objectives and war structures do not address the two groups properly, either by taking away the voluntary aspect of learners, or ignoring the fact that you can’t force people to PvP who do not want to.
Any non-duel PVP action in high-sec gets you a suspect flag. ( ganks go criminal, no change there )
Paying a war bill simply prevents CONCORD blapping you. Engaging a war target in HS makes you a suspect.
This ups the ante for aggressors substantially, doesn’t require a bunch of complicated changes, and kind of just makes sense. No more hub campers. Fixes ridiculous abused mechanics like neutral logi. Groups like PIRAT / Marmite / other dregs of high sec “mercenary” groups who abuse every mechanic to basically just suck life out of the game are knocked out.
I’d be in favor of this one in addition to whatever rework. Though, I’m in favor of an escalating war mechanic where it’s the defender who decides on it becoming a shooting war (the aggressor has other options, such as production sabotage, tariffs, ewar aggression, general disruptive crap that will urge the defender into taking the first shots.)
to make it short, my main character is a missionrunner. O.K. CCP did not much for simple missionrunners but the main issue I have is the current bounty-mechanic on real players. By the way,this is NOT my main character, It is a “throw away account”. Otherwise my main would get even more bounty.
The current situation is, that this mechanic is just a simple grieving tool. You just do your missionrunning and someone, who dont knew you, spend a bounty on you. Thats just silly! I dont want to get marked as a WANTED, if I did nothing wrong!
Years ago I was VERY active on the help channel, but now some idiots give you a bounty for writing in such official channels. And what is the consequence of that? I stopped writing and helping new players!!!
Please make it so, that I can get rid of these dumb low-bounties WITHOUT killmails or shooting my ships!!!
Perhaps it would be possible to get rid of a bounty by paying the bounty sum to CONCORD or so (1 + -1 = 0).
Now I have cancelled all my accounts, which where paid with real money since YEARS! Stop harassing me with this bounty mechanic and I will come back and pay again. But not with this current Situation.
Or you could just ignore being ‘Wanted’, like 99% of the population (a figure pulled out of my ass, admittedly - but that’s where 99% of the figures posted in these forums come from).
Can we stop this “no PvP in HS!” tripe that some people keep championing?
We just need to rebalance the current WD mechanics to make it more even and to encourage smaller, but more involved conflict for those in HS. If you have any situational awareness, are not lazy, use commonsense ship fittings, and in general, follow any RL rules that serve you well in your current job or relationships, then HS PVP outside of the current WD rules should not be a problem. The killboards are full of people who lost their ship because they were autopiloting, watching Netflix while mining, carrying billions of isk cargo in poorly tanked ships, using horribly fitted ships, and generally failing to use due diligence in regards to EVE. Any game shouldn’t reward bad technique or lack of effort.
Let us focus on rebalancing the game so that the game remains as close as we can reasonably be to its original concept, but with certain long standing issues being either corrected or completely removed. Removing ALL HS PVP just encourages laziness, afking, and all other types of detrimental behavior. A neutered HS will have its rewards,mining, missions, and exploration sites nerfed to oblivion, ruining the game for the majority of the current HS players. Quit trying to turn EVE into ED single player mode.
Why?
Why is peace so much of a problem with lost souls, why is peace and tranquility pain, why is their pain so big that they want to expand on all the people around themselves?
They must know that the spread of pain will not reduce their pain and will not bring rest into their soul.
Holly 4 empires are created and based on the order of organization of wealth and serenity.
Ignorance and Despair have brought war and struggle in HiSec but spirits of knowledge and progress will expel PVP demons into the heartache of the heels of LowSec and NullSec
Let New Eden delight the lonely PVP souls and bring peace and quiet to HiSec
Oh, I get it now, role playing in this thread. Well done! However, over the top channeling belongs in another section of the forums, where I think your talents would be better recieved. Safe (autopiloting) travels to you.
And how would you like to do that. EVE is a sandbox game and game mechanics are not attached to certain groups of people but are the same for everyone. Now for some reason people like @Brisc_Rubal and @CCP_Fozzie seem to think that wardecs are favoring the “aggressor” (As they stated in the CSM minutes). But what do they mean by that? That the game mechanics are set in a way that gives the people who declare war an advantage game mechanic wise?
Maybe @Brisc_Rubal and his alliance wanted to demonstrate that recently when they wardeced our Highsec based alliance with their nullsec super power. It didn’t really turn out that great: War 621344 | zKillboard , War 621345 | zKillboard
Turns out as a defender we have the incredible advantage of bringing in allies for free. @Brisc_Rubal’s colleges lost a little over 3bil ISK without any kills from their side. No imagine the result if @CCP_Fozzie had already “rebalanced” the game mechanics.
The point I’m trying to make is that in the end no matter how you will design the mechanic, it will still be available for both sides and people who care about game mechanics will find a way to abuse it to their advantage and people who don’t will return to the forums to cry for more nerfs.
The only exception to this is if you design it in a way that it is dis-incentivized, because it becomes boring or has such unrealistic demands that no one will even bother with it anymore. And that is how I fear this will go. I have not seen a single word from CCP that let’s me think they even intent to make wardecs an interesting gameplay. So far we only know about more restrictions and requirements which leads to less accessibility of the feature.
Pretty much everyone agrees that the mechanic is in a shitty state and needs a rework, but if you think to “balance” around what currently happens in the sandbox to force a change in behavior is the right thing then you haven’t really thought about what the real problem is, that the whole tooling around wardecs is bad, for both sides and not the wardecs themselves.
Yes, it does. It’s like hunting carebears or ganking. The attacker can freely choose the target, battleground, date, time, and ensure a victory (or no own losses). On an individual basis this is tolerable IMO, because it just inflicts damage in the moment, and everything is reset to start line after the kill. Also you have plenty of options of avoiding and defensive counter-play including baiting, without longer lasting consequences.
This is not true for wardecs, the chosen (by the attacker) defender is in a much larger and longer commitment situation, multiple people are affected. Evasion strategies usually require to give up corp, lose a structure, stop playing for a week. Skilled fighting back is usually not an option … remember, you were chosen because you can’t.
If you think THAT is the advantage they where talking about and that needs to be nerfed, then good luck coming up with a game mechanic that isn’t completely useless and used by no one in the end (which is the goal of most people claiming they want balance anyway I think).
This jumps too short, as I said it’s only a problem in combination with the other aspect: long lasting, severe consequences for a group of people. Personally I would rather address this second part than the first, strengthen the defenders chances of fun.
This is the key; making it fun ( or at least not so unfun) for both sides. If the current WD groups would go against their own sect of players or like minded other corps, then WD mechanics could be fine as it is, since both groups in the conflict enjoy that aspect of EVE. However, what we have now is the majority of the WDs today are between experienced PvPers and some random industrial or mining corporation. Blapping on trade hub undocks. Camping a small corporation’s only station. Only one side is having fun and this helps result in the less than 25% retention rate after 2 months of trying the game.
If CCP actually tries to think outside the binary choice box and offers a new comphrehensive system that ties WD to the types and numbers of player owned structures with a graduated level of intensity of warfare, then perhaps more players being decced would consider it fun or at least feel they have more options other than what they have now. The game could not survive its current population trend as a profitable company unless certain changes were made; doubly so when PA bought them out and subjected CCP to higher business return expectations.
Unless you devise a WD system that increases the enjoyment of the game for those being decced, you fail on obtaining your business goal: the attraction and, more importantly, the retention of paying customers. Those deccers who have been enjoying the lopsided battles and telling their victims to HTFU and enjoy their beatings seem so surprised when it’s brought to their attention that others may not like the current game mechanics because not only are they illogical in nature, they make for poor gameplay and lack of business sustainability in the changing market.
I understand that we all don’t want some half-@ssed CCP WD mechanics implemented into the game. I am not an advocate for no PvP in HS. Neither am I , as some people project on me, one of those who will keep crying for nerfs. Instead, I am with those customers asking for an increase in the availability of fun in playing EVE by making intelligent and well planned needed changes in the game’s mechanics. That some people appear to feel threatened by any suggestion to increase fun for someone other than their own style of players speaks volumes about them. The status quo will not work; neither will turning EVE into Hello Kitty or ED solo. Between those two polar opposites, there has to be an acceptable middle ground.
When CCP Rise made a positive statement regarding suicide ganking, it is was immediately enshrined as holy writ. It was not challenged at all to the degree that the war-dec announcement has received. You were not given an actual database to play around in, just some graphs. (86%, 13% and 1% across an active 80,000). I do not question the data, I question the conclusion that 1% illegal is a validation. I recall when CCP Soundwave said that “suicide ganking was not intended to profitable” - comments ranged from “I do not believe he said that” to calls for his head. (and before someone mentions “Freighters” this comment was specific in relation to the July 2012 barge update).
Without “data” it looks when you hear some that fits your narrative - affirmation and high-fives all round. But if it is otherwise: it should be signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.
And seriously - the “carebear” crutch? Nice segue to ad hominem. It was only ever a “big lie” - but I guess you cannot see that without a graph either. Oh wait, Quant did give graphs back in 2015. Guess there is no helping you then.
